I am far from impressed with what has been reported from the latest WikiLeaks dump. "Pentagon Papers" this aint. I am all the more convinced now that Assange and WikiLeaks are, at best, hacker anarchists. There is nothing particularly bad at being an anarchist. But, pretending that this is all in the public interest and nothing but, and the world's papers going along with that song is, well, like the warm piss on oneself on a cold day!
This idea that the publication of private conversations and communications is in the public interest – whether it’s done by tabloids or by sanctimonious candidates for the next Pulitzer Prize – is a self-serving attempt to present voyeurism as an important public duty. It is not unlike the claims made by reality TV producers, who frequently argue that their tawdry offerings ‘raise awareness’ and serve the ‘public interest’.
How is the public interest served by the purposeless leaking of information? Since when has it been obligatory for institutions to expose their private deliberations to everyone on the internet? Has the public learnt something important from all this? Has some wrong been put right by the mass dumping of communiqués on to the world wide web? Or is this really a case of the narrow interests of the news organisations involved getting confused with the interests of the public?
In the movie Conspiracy Theory, the Mel Gibson character is being hounded and abused by the state because it turns out that one of his crazy conspiracy theories is not crazy at all, but true. I suppose my branding of WikiLeaks as nothing but a hi-tech anarchist, and no way a journalist, is similarly one of those darts that actually hit the target and close to the center. How about the following excerpt:
Amnesty International, Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, George Soros’s Open Society Institute, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and the International Crisis Group signed the letter (delivered via email), citing concerns that Afghan informants named in the document dump will face the brutal retribution of the Taliban. Assange responded by asking Amnesty International to “provide staff to help redact the names of Afghan civilians,” a pointless exercise now that the documents already exist online, unredacted.
Amnesty expressed interest in assisting, though warned that they are constrained by limited resources, and suggested a conference call to discuss the issue further. Assange responded, via email, with a threat: “I'm very busy and have no time to deal with people who prefer to do nothing but cover their asses. If Amnesty does nothing I shall issue a press release highlighting its refusal." On his Twitter feed, Assange told his followers to not “be fooled on the ‘human rights groups’”—scare quotes are in the original—because they are “US led.”
When Amnesty International is upset with him, well, that ain't good news for a supposedly war-ending, peace-mongering, truth-seeking Assange. Anarchists are far more destructive than otherwise. Which is why even though I am usually sympathetic to their goals, I usually follow them only from a safe distance. Anarchists don't do constructive engagement. WikiLeaks is nothing but the latest version of a Molotov cocktail.
Julian Assange now identifies himselfas the editor of WikiLeaks. Which then has set off a whole range of discussions on whether what Assange does is journalism at all.
And then there are those who have already branded Assange a threat to national security and that he ought to be arrested. Who would have imagined that Time would have a piece with the title, "Should the US kidnap WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange?"
So, from my home-office in Eugene, Oregon, I have a different take on all these--Assange and WikiLeaks are the latest version of anarchism and anarchists who have always challenged the state and status quo.
It used to be that the meetings of the World Trade Organization or the G-8 or the IMF were the venues that provided anarchists with an outlet for their political and cultural dissent. Most governments treated them as a nuisance, and every once in a while would make their police reaction so strong that anarchists ended up getting a lot more publicity and sympathy than would otherwise have been the case.
So, to all these rebels without a cause, al Qaeda and the Anglo-American "war on terror" have provided an ideal outlet for their passions, and with quite a focus as well. This entire format of information-anarchy also works well for them--no need to gather in public places, and no visible confrontation with the establishment. Given that the wars have affected the entire world now, and given the outright horrors of, say, waterboarding or Guantanamo or ... I can easily imagine that while those of us who are pacifists (or wimpy?) simply blog or write op-eds or grumble to our local Congress member, the young and radical anarchists have WikiLeaks.
To a large extent, this is a sign of the times--the information and technology world in which we live. If our government can, from the comforts of military bases in Nevada, fly unmanned planes that kill people all the way across the world in Pakistan, then, hey, is it any surprise that these radical dissenters have their own remote operations?
WikiLeaks, I suspect, is only the beginning of all kinds of cyber-activities yet to come.
